I’ve moved across to using a Macbook from Windows XP. While I’m generally happy about this, productivity isn’t where it should be. I’m gradually getting used to the interface, and quite relieved at some of the things I no longer need to do to make Windows perform.

On Windows however, I did have some nice tools that made my working life quite productive. One of these was pocketmod. It’s a free utility to collapse eight pages of pdf content into an easily foldable format. In my case, I use it as a handy todo list, reference guide, and general productivity boost.

On Windows, it’s a simple download. You print your material to a pdf file, and then process that file into a pocketmod format. I didn’t think it could get much easier. However, I was wrong.

On the Mac, there is no pocketmod. Apparently there is, but I can’t seem to find it. Fortunately, some very clever people have managed to use a couple of opensource tools to embed the whole process into a simple extension to the Mac print process. Now instead of printing to pdf, and then processing the resultant file to pocketmod format, I just print directly to a pocketmod file. I am loving the Mac more and more.

There’s quite a good description of how to do it here so I won’t expand on this in copious detail. However, for those looking to do this a new with the current version of Multivalent from sourceforge, you will find that it’s a non starter. Unfortunately, the current version’s jar does not include the class files for PDF manipulation, and the older version of the jar is not available on sourceforge.